Coaching The Team PlayerBobby Howe

Review by Eric Blommer

This book is geared towards teams that play 11 aside but it is still good reading for other coaches that want to understand the duties of different positions. Rereading this book for the review I was struck by how close this book follows the instruction given in the USSF B license. The difference is that this book makes the concepts really easy to understand.

The book starts by discussing the general qualities of a good player. Then it takes each position and discusses the offensive and defensive duties in each third of the field. This is great information for helping your players understand their role in the team. It also makes it a lot more fun to watch games when you can focus on a certain position and see how they react to different situations. Once you understand the roles of the players the book shows you how to set up practices to improve the needed skills. I think this is one of the better books for a coach making the transition from recreation to competitive soccer.

Fun Stuff

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This is our own free android app (sorry ipeople) that installs in seconds and contains everything on our normal rules page along with a link to the official FIFA rules and USYSAA rules. Here is the free app!